I looked up from my steaming cup of coffee and watched his little face crumple.
“What’s wrong, Booey?”
“I miss Big Mamaw,” he sobbed over his cereal bowl.
I quickly rounded the breakfast bar and pulled him into my arms. I made eye contact with my husband with one question in my eyes. Where did that come from?
She’s been gone over a year and a half now.
A year and a half.
Saying that knocks the wind out of me. We’ve lived through two of her birthdays, two Christmases. I’m coming up on my second birthday without her. She always made sure to send my card first. I don’t normally keep cards, but I didn’t toss the last birthday card she sent me in 2014. Maybe I was cluttered and running behind. Maybe I knew.
I miss her hand-writing.
The boys spent the weekend at The Farm, the culmination in a three week tour of their grandparents. They’d told me stories of riding the quad out the back 40 with Papau and taking a walk back the hollow with YiaYia—both of which take them right past my Grandma’s old home. And so when I looked at my husband with the question in my eyes, I figured the close proximity to her space conjured up some memories and feelings.
“It’s okay to feel sad, to miss her, to cry. I still miss her and cry sometimes too.”
He nodded and held me close. In fact, he didn’t let go for quite some time. I just let him hold on to me while I held him tightly. Sometimes we need to feel safe and secure in our emotions, our grief, our memories; we need to know we’re supported even when we’re not smiling and joyful.
If I’ve learned anything since losing Grandma, it’s that grief is not linear. Even for kids. Maybe especially so for kids because nothing kids do is linear. Two steps forward, eight steps sideways, do a little dance, growth spurt, emotional regression, oh hey! New phase!
We adults like to pretend we have our ish in line. I grieve in the proper order, all five steps, one after the other. Don’t mind me. I’m not crying in the corner. Chin up, buttercup.
Except that’s not true either. I’ll be fine for weeks at a time and then I’ll pull out the pink tablecloth to bring some Valentine’s Day cheer to the dining room and find myself sitting on the floor, clutching it in my hands while holding it to my face. Absentmindedly looking through old photos to find something fun to share for Throwback Thursday only to be sidelined by photos long forgotten, taken with my early high school camera; were we all ever that young?

Oh, but I’ve yet to find a picture of her with my youngest son and it breaks me in two.
I’m thankful my sons feel safe enough to share openly regarding their own grief. It makes me feel less alone in my own grief, I suppose. I want to be one of those faithful women who accept death for what it is, who rejoice that my Grandma is no longer in pain, but I selfishly want her here with me. With us. I want to sit down at her table in her home, not at her table in my home. I want to eat her macaroni, not my macaroni that is her macaroni. I want to call her when the Cardinal birds return to my yard. And the hummingbirds. And the stupid red-winged black birds.
But she’s gone. And we’re here. All trying to make sense of it in our own ways.
I told my Dad about Booey’s breakdown. We both figured it was caused by the close proximity to her home over the weekend. And then my Dad said, “She’s in his permanent memory. He’ll always have her with him.”
I smiled as the tear fell from my eye.